Unreal Engine 4

Nope, no OpenGL 4 on Mac (nor Linux I assume) until they can drop support for OSX 10.6. Source and thread.

 

If Unity are to keep their current offerings, I'd expect a reworked subscription model or something entirely new. Because Unity have basically given up on the market between their 2 main tiers (ignoring subs and asset store for a moment):

1) Unity Free
2) Unity Pro * n (addons)

This is quite a gap we have between those two. And I bet the current subscription model doesn't fill it effectively. They have created a new market and then abandoned it. Since Unity haven't figured out how to monetize that middle tier, it's just a matter of time someone else would.

 

For me it looks like a desperate attempt from Epic too.. well probably it is not but still looks like that . Giving away all those shiny things for (almost) free. I think Unity now has a stronger competiotr than ever, but no reason to worry about them, not counting the already huge user base and income from asset store Unity has several advantages: it's much more lightweight, requires far less strong hardware, more easy to script, there are great addons (though many of them are not free), and i think it's more bug-free than UE at current stage.

I think that buisness model should change, because many (including me) are in that segment that wouldn't mind spending some money, but not thousands.. especially when there is a much more cheap alternative available now, but i think Unity is big enough now to allow themself dropping the price maybe by intorducing royalties.
In any case competition is just good for us users

 

This may not be entirely black and white.

Quoting a post from one of the Houdini devs in the SideFX forums:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=30644

Admittedly this refers to performance in a DCC, but Apple's "implementation" of OpenGL has been enough to put many vendors (including SideFX) from using the latest and greatest GL versions for a long time, not just now.

 

Long time Unity and other engine game developer here.

Having recently evaluated UE4, I'd like to outline a few observations from a programmers perspective.

* UE4 source code, being C++ sits in source control very nicely. (Something a bit mediocre with Unity)

* Scripting sandbox in Unity makes re-writing core assets non trivial.

* UE4 binary sizes were almost half on common platform (With Unity source stripping).

Don't get me wrong, Unity is great tool but IMHO is oriented towards, for lack of a better term, the 'lower barrier to entry' market.

As a programmer, this makes it tough not to be attracted by the offerings of UE4.


These are my findings that are slanting me towards primarily developing in UE4.


I would love to be persuaded otherwise.

 

Are you asking that or are you trying to imply that Unity Free still exists?

The hobby market is not about releasing games, they have a big dream and in that dream it's all about using lots of pretty features. $20/m for a good looking game is a whole lot better than a S***ty looking game for free in their eyes. They're the market Unity is losing right now and the people that will hurt most are the asset developers.

I'm sure you guys will survive though, Unity is a lot easier to use than Unreal Engine 4 which is what I love about it..for now.

 

They're also losing people like me, who are denied effects which have been standard in any game engine for years now like render textures. Hell, right now the only thing Unity offers over UE4 or even UDK for me is stencil buffer access, and that's cleared before the post-processing passes, which makes it useless for a lot of stuff. Hell, the ancient version of OpenGL is a problem too because it means I can't use any of even the most basic atmospheric scattering techniques I know. There's also Unity Free's absolutely awful sound system, which is honestly only a slight improvement in Pro right now.

It's more than just people who want "lots of pretty features" and more "people who want the most basic of features while still getting the most bang for their buck."

 

Potentially, depending on the game and features needed.

 

Because Free version of Unity is nowhere near close to the features of UE4?

Compared to UE4, Unity free is missing, Lod, Render Texture, Light Probes, Post Processing effects, Occlusion Culling, Deferred Rendering, proper navigation, Native Plug ins, Profiler, Script Access to the Asset Pipeline, Soft Shadows, Realtime Shadows from other lights, Material Editor, Matinee, Landscape, Foliage Tool, Source access, Cascade, Blueprints, should I go on?

Are you really implying that Unity technologies think that, Unity Free is the equivalent offering to UE4?

 

Are you kidding? Fine, I'll compare it to the free version of Unity.

Instantly, I get post processing, render textures, an utterly fantastic materials editor, a better sound system, the ability to play video files, a CPU and GPU profiler (both in-editor AND in a test build for the latter), soft particles, an actually very robust particle system (shuriken is a mess), constant updates and bugfixes, and basically a whole slew of other features that were already mostly there in UDK to start. For $240 a year (or less, handled well) I can get all the features of Unity Pro and more.

The reason everyone compares it to Unity Pro is because that's the level it's competing against and the level it's totally destroying. You're shooting yourself in the foot with this ridiculous question.

 

No offense but comparing UE4 with Unity Free, is like comparing Photoshop with MS Paint .

 

Loads of times I've wanted to make a game or a feature that uses render textures, but I can't Also no occlusion culling is a bit annoying but I can get around that usually.

 

and when Photoshop costs 19 dollars per month with the option to cancel subscription.

Maybe it's time to check out the features offered by Unity Free if you want to put it as a direct competitor with EU

 

I think the writing on the wall partly by the hostility on this forum ATM.

"First place is often modest whilst second place is defensive."

This community is starting to resemble the Ruby community.

I don't seen this as much in the UE community (and now C++ community).

 

Simply due to feature sets, they are comparable if not better in some instance than Unity Pro. UE4 Examples and comparisons:

64-Bit editor (In Unity 5 , not in U4)
Full screen HDR reflections (In U5? Reflection probes, not in 4, not in U4 free).
Post processing (In U4 pro, not in U4 free)
Temporal AA (Not in U4 pro, not in free)
PBR (Announced in U5, not in U4 natively)
Blueprint (Nothing was announced for U5, neither is it in U4)
Material Editor (Nothing was announced in U5(Although I have suspicions), Not in U4 pro of free)
Matinee Cinematics (Nothing announced in U5, not in U4 pro or free)
Cascade VFX system (Nothing announced in U5, not in U4 pro or free)

It's more of a question if Unity 5 pro will stand up to Unreal 4, never mind Unity 4 free.

 

It is a bit of a lion's den.

A bit less enthusiastically...

Epic have done a really good job with UE4.

I can see the attraction, as a Unity Pro user who has to think about scalability and working with other people. Remember that the hobby and a large part of the Indy crowd are collaborators at a distance.

UE4 isn't split into two versions - it's all-in, no need to worry about upgrading, and no need to worry if the other guy has Pro or Basic (because you're not allowed to mix); and you can't ignore than the Unity Free users are constantly calling for more features, or looking for workarounds to Free limitations. They have less resources to create great looking art - not saying there aren't great artists using Free, but when a little PostFX can make even simple boxes look good, that can draw a crowd.

I'm not saying Unity Free should have all the features of Unity Pro, I'm just answering your question.

As a Pro user, you could learn a lot from UE4. But going by the level of support I've seen the past year or more, I think it's clear Pro users aren't nearly as important to UT; it's the masses. I'm not pro-UE4, I'll use what gets the job done, but I will say one thing about their support and level of engagement: it's fantastic, and it reminds me of Unity of old.

Just my two cents, and not intended to be mean spirited

 

Probs because they are pretty much non existent.

 

Would really like to see that one in U5!

 

Not specifically Unity Free, but I want to put in an earnest plea to NOT focus on new features. Unity can't expect to match UE or CE on bells and whistles. I think Unity will lose veterans to UE4 not primarily because of features but because of bad docs and incomplete existing features. The only reason I'm tempted by UE4 is because I have much more faith in it being solid and complete compared to Unity, which tends to be a mess of half-finished features.

 

This vision has made me think.. *head hurts j/k*
but i actually think you have a good valid point here.

 

I think overall, Unity really can't beat UE4 in terms of features atm.

So the focus should really be on being more affordable since Indies are the ones mostly using it now and with UE4 pricing the way it is, there's no way that I'd pick Unity as my engine if my project weren't already so heavily invested in it already.

Next project though? Up in the air. Leaning to UE4 by the looks of things. We'll see if Unity reacts, they'll need to if they hope to remain a player.

 

My take as beginner coming from a programming background:

I started experimenting with Unity a couple of months ago with the intention to make and release a simple 3D game and *maybe* even be able to sell a few copies. Naturally I have a vision for how I want my game to be, and started to explore how Unity could realize that vision.

Just a week into messing around with the editor I find out that I need the pro version to get dynamic shadows from a single point light. I have figured out that I might be able to work around this limitation with something from the asset store. The cost of this is not really a problem, but it is hard to know if an asset will really solve my problem without first spending money on it.

A month or so later I get the idea to compensate for my inability to make original art with some nifty post processing effects. Turns out it is impossible without pro.

In the midst of pondering if I should pay $1500-$4500 + tax with little hope to ever earn it back with my game the UT4 bomb drops. I depart with $19 and spend an couple of evenings with it. The initial result is a scene much better looking that what I got in Unity, with as much dynamic lighting and post processing as I want (and my computer can handle). And it just works. I know other parts of the engine is harder to work with than Unity, but can you blame me for seriously considering just dropping Unity and learning UE4 instead?

My my main point here is that the features missing from Unity free isn't just super advanced stuff a beginner won't even understand or miss. I think there are a lot of people like me, who is limited by missing pro features after less than a month with Unity. The risk of losing them to UE4 is significant.

 

There are a lot of people that play games that are not on Steam.

 

But is there anything suggesting their computers are significantly different?

 

OK I've started playing with Unreal and OMG it's shiny!

 

Welcome to the snake pit

 

Just to make a full disclosure further to my previous post, I have been programming since the early 80s so I am not shy of programming by no means. But I don't want to be programming when I am creating art, and I consider what Unity produces as art. Those of you who like programming in Unity and have accepted it as a norm...well that's because you don't know any better, I suppose. But that's not your fault really - UT did not provide a venue for everyone to actually produce things without programming so we are stuck with it.

Regarding people who enjoy what's produced at the end, sure they care about the code, as in the execution of the product made, but they do not care whether you spent sleepless nights coding, or used a visual programming tool, as long as the end result works as intended. If you wanted to code then why even bother using Unity? Write your own engine, or get any number of free open source ones and code with them to your hearts content.

The point is that for *this* kind of software and genre, that Unity strives to be in, there should be as less programming as possible. That is the democratization that needs to occur and unfortunately for UT, Epic is actually making it happen. They've literally put their foot into UT's mouth.

Also, comparing UE4 to Unity Free is getting old and silly...Even comparing it to Unity Pro is silly because Unity Pro is NOT a AAA engine. Some Unity "apologists" here think it is, or would like it to be. Again, good for you to defend your investment, but the facts shows otherwise. Unity Pro might be an up and rising star, potentially heading towards AAA stardom, but it's not there yet. I don't care if couple of games were made with Unity that look like they could be AAA, accepted facts say otherwise.

In any case, I will admit that until Epic's announcement at GDC, I was one of those Unity "apologists" myself, albeit not in this forum.

Also, someone mentioned something about "...when Photoshop costs $19 for a subscription..." Actually, if you have been sleeping under a rock, (old) breaking news for you - Photoshop CS2 is free thanks to an update mistake Adobe made, and you can probably still get it from their website, or elsewhere.

 

I'm very surprised that you're shocked.

You implied that the unity model is competitive in a 54 page thread that has been ravaging on for days about exactly what changes NEED to be made for unity to be competitive.

That changes are going to happen was just assumed by everyone after analysis of the dire situation. Is unity really going to suggest it's "business as usual"? If that's the case, I think they can expect this tone to continue and even escalate from their community, which will shrink drastically.

 

and God spoke to his people!!!

 

Mentioned this in other thread but there are some key components missing for sure, what is more is that these missing components also limit what is useful to you on asset store.

For me:

- non native DLL support
- Render textures
- .NET sockets

I consider those all pretty basic things, haven't even gotten into the lighting/post processing/navmesh/etc. area which would also be nice to have for many "basic" projects.

 

I just unsubbed from UE4 because it's still more high maintenance than Unity is. First of all, you still have to setup your skinned meshes a certain way for UE4 to use them. This is an old way of doing things compared to Unity, which takes skinned meshes as they are, usually.
I am a programmer, not a modeller and I don't want to have to redo a skinned mesh so it can work.
Also, not matter what settings I chose, UE4 was a resource hog and I had a low framerate even on an empty scene. I'm using a MAC (Win 8.1 bootcamped, of course) with a GT 650M and I was still like, "WTF, man!!" I am not impressed by c++ scripting either. I've used objective-c and since c++ is similar, it is a turn off for me. C# is my go to language of choice. UE4 so far is unimpressive.

However, UE biggest strength is it's visual scripting and it's legacy. Any serious AAA company will choose UE of Unity because of its legacy.

 

.

 

Was working with U4 most of my free time for the past days, and I am just sad that I have to work with Unity on clients project after I worked with UE4. Its amazing for artists.

 

I don't really get why everyone is so angry about all of this. There are a few things I can add here because I work with Unity in both ways, Indie and "professional". I publish stuff on the Asset Store and I also work at a big Publisher that is currently working on a big project with 60+ members.
First of all, the big project is not impacted in the slighted by the recent changes. Everything is going on as it has been and it will always go on as it was. I guess that's the same with other big developers in the industry. No matter what the price is Unity is the cheapest. Period. Big publishers hate to share revenue. And Unity with its 4500$ license per seat is cheap as hell!!! (For a publisher that has to share revenue in the millions to share!)
Second of all: The engine does not make a game! It is nothing more but a set of tools that allows you to create nice games! We should never forget that. I personally am very excited about the new features Unity brings maybe in November/December this year, because almost all of the features included were on my wishlist. And I think that's awesome!

I as an Indie developer am very excited about the new possibilities that UE4 and CE3 bring to the Indie market but I think I don't have to switch because of a bunch of reasons. The biggest one being Unity 3d is free. I can make any game without Rendertextures or posteffects etc. I dont even need the profiler because that is only needed in the polishing phase of a game. If you made a great game and you really wanna publish it, you can still upgrade to Unity pro and polish it. There are a couple of reasons why each engine above is great and I think each of them got it's own niche even though Unity is now under attack by new competitors.

Cheers,

Max

 

It's with regret I have to point out that the free version of Unity in no way matches what an enthusiast experiences when trying UE4. It is like comparing a moped with a race bike, and race bike enthusiasts do not consider the moped in discussions.

That's partly the problem with the Free model - it has to be gimped. I think that it is a very hard problem to solve this perception and just adding features to free might or might not solve the issue (render textures would be the first to go I suspect).

 

I wonder if all the people going nuts about UE4 features are going to really take advantage of them. It seems to me that if you struggle to make good games with Unity, switching to UE4 won't solve the problem.

Don't get me wrong, UE4 is really impressive but I rather go nuts about features that I'm truly going to use. Besides the cost of switching (time mostly) shouldn't be ignored.

 

Yeah, they are not gamers and don't usually have a video card, just onboard video. Plus lots of laptops and business computers that people play games on.

 

Because I (we) are Pro users? Free users can't complain about price since they are well, already free. But for people who wants to go Free to Pro, subscription or upfront license, comparatively, Unity is expensive. For existing Pro users like me (some think otherwise), upgrading 4x to 5x is expensive, with how Unity development based on shiny useless features.

I teach a Unity class every year at a school, and it has been two years already, and at my recommendation, using Unity. First time, they bought academic licenses of U3, the next year (which was last year), U4 came and they had to upgrade. Then this year, U5 coming, another upgrade? I think I will switch to teaching UE4 instead.

Perhaps you should read the whole thread and see what your customers (us) are asking/thinking.

 

I think it is because for most people, $19 + 5%/month seems a lot better than $1,500 or $75/month. Sure, studios dealing with larger sums, that 5% might make it an easy decision. But for humble indies who want the more advanced features, $19 + %5 is an amazing offer.

If people don't mind a revenue system, I think it would be good if Unity offered such an alternative (apart from the already existing alternatives). Maybe $9 + 5%/month. That would suddenly change things entirely imo.

 

You should probably check and see what the most common graphics cards are on Steam then.

 

My suggestion would be to drop Unity Free and make everything Pro subscription, including all the add-ons (excluding console).
Subscription Unity Pro + royalties : $17.99
Subscription Unity Pro + royalty free : $49.99

Also, making everything Pro solves the feature delta problem with the Free version users complain about.
The assetstore would also benefit from supporting just one version, it just works.
And besides, Pro has a better sound then Free, not?
The price differentiator should be royalties or no royalties, simple as that.

 

The Free version exists, but it currently lacks important Pro features, and that prevents games made with Free from looking as good. For example, we can look at the "Medieval Environment Pack" in the Unity Asset Store.

Here is a video of the asset using Pro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQT-9e6-f3Y

Here is a video of the same asset using Free:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPEIjHKosyU

The Free version still looks good, but it does not look nearly as awesome as it does in Pro.

The $19/month price point with UE4 is the perfect price point for hobbyists who want to make something that looks Pro. The Free version of Unity is an excellent way to get people into the Unity ecosystem, but the lack of Pro features is going to encourage hobbyists and indies to consider switching to UE4.

What Unity should consider doing is adding the Pro features to the Free version, but keeping the Unity splash screen and the max earnings threshold in the Free version. Maybe even lower the earnings threshold. For example, the threshold is currently $100k. You could change it to $10k along with giving Free users all of the Pro features. If you did that, hobbyists and indies would build their projects in Unity. You could make extra money from your asset store, because everybody would know that all of the assets would now work fully with the Free version.

 

That statement doesn't hold up. You invested time and money into Unity didn't you? Why wouldn't somebody do the same and invest into UE4 especially since it's now a rather attractive alternative. Those willing to go the extra mile will do so. Don't underestimate peoples willingness to learn new things. Personally (including myself) I know a lot who have no problem learning new tech/software. This is part of our job as game developer. Anyhow, I gladly continue to use/learn what it takes to use both engines.

 

+1

I'm sure Dave Hampson is here just for his own personal curiosity and his questions and attitude have nothing to do with Unity's attitude as a whole...[right? ] because if Unity shares this "head-in-the-sand" perspective then I'm afraid we've all just seen and passed the high water mark for Unity as a development platform.

It is very concerning to me as an Asset Store developer, which is a perspective I'm not seeing much of in this thread. I'm sure Unity can and will continue to be profitable as a company, but without changes to their pricing models now in the face of this direct competition they will start hemorrhaging users which will turn the Asset Store into a non-viable platform for me. and I and others will switch.... thus hemorrhaging more users.

All I can say is that Unity better be reading this thread.

 

I agree. I really don't think it helps Unity's case to try to somehow compare free Unity to UE4.

 

People are not going nuts about the advanced features, that is where one of the misconceptions is. People are going nuts over the very easy to use features you can make use of Day 1.

 

This thread is only missing Dreamora writing a 2 billion lines post explaining how bad Unreal Engine licensing is and how evil Epic Games are.